All posts tagged ‘heart surgery’

Max Page, the seven-year-old boy who played a pint-size Darth Vader in the most popular ad shown during the 2011 Super Bowl, is having heart surgery on Thursday to correct a congenital birth defect, according to an article on the Huffington Post. According to his mother, he’s handling the news like a trooper; she reports that he told her, “Mom, I don’t have a choice. I have to go through it. I don’t like it and it’s still scary — but I have to. So I think I might as well go through it with a good attitude.”

Part of his good attitude includes proactively planning activities that he’ll be able to do during his recovery period over the summer, assigning themes, secret codes and rules to each room. “The most favorite is the garage — Explode Zone — science experiments and art projects, the messier the better.”

I admit it: I’m not a fan of Facebook. This week, with the emergence of Google+, I’ve been starry-eyed at the possibility of a new social media delivery system that allows me to do all the stuff I wanted to but couldn’t on Facebook. And while I’d like to talk about Google+, that’s just not what this post is about.

Nope. This is about my dad, Facebook and healing in the age of social media.

In brief: My dad was born in 1952. He first heard the opening riff of the Beatles’ “I Feel Fine” over a little battery-operated radio sometime in 1964, and soon after picked up a guitar and adopted a mop-top. He’s never been the same.

Starting around his 30th birthday, Dad fell ill with a series of odd symptoms, from painful joints to burning rashes. For years his doctors tried to find an answer. He’s tried every regimen and medicine known to man and has managed. As with many diseases — this one striking roughly one in a million — doctors aren’t exactly scrambling to make advances or spend grants on research.

He’s been able to keep his worst symptoms at bay with a cocktail of medicine. He takes around 175 pills a week including prednisone and methotrexate, both of which have side effects and risks. But he’s had a slew of other problems.

Eight years ago, when I graduated from college — literally the week I graduated — he had emergency open heart surgery to have two valves replaced and a double bypass. He survived, even with the odds stacked against him. Then, in 2004, a week before my wedding — I have great timing — he fell ill with a staph infection that nearly killed him. For a while there we weren’t sure if we’d have a wedding or a funeral. Again, he defied the odds and survived an illness that kills some people in their prime.

I admit it: I’m not a fan of Facebook. This week, with the emergence of Google+, I’ve been starry-eyed at the possibility of a new social media delivery system that allows me to do all the stuff I wanted to but couldn’t on Facebook. And while I’d like to talk about Google+, that’s just not what this post is about.

Nope. This is about my dad, Facebook and healing in the age of social media.

In brief: My dad was born in 1952. He first heard the opening riff of the Beatles’ “I Feel Fine” over a little battery-operated radio sometime in 1964, and soon after picked up a guitar and adopted a mop-top. He’s never been the same.